A drawing depicts a planned office complex for Yonaguni, a Japanese island near Taiwan, that will include a bomb shelter able to host up to 200 people during a military attack. (Japan Cabinet Secretariat)
Japan plans to build an underground bomb shelter on its westernmost island that’s capable of housing up to 200 people in the event of a military attack or natural disaster.
The 23,680-square-foot shelter will be constructed beneath a new town hall in Yonaguni — just 67 miles east of Taiwan — and is scheduled for completion by March 31, 2028.
Construction is set to begin in fiscal 2026, which starts April 1, according to a town spokesman, who spoke by phone Monday on condition of anonymity in line with Japanese government rules.
“It is not something special that will need special stairs or elevators,” he said. “It will be an open space that usually will be used as underground parking — just a floor in the basement.”
The spokesman did not provide a cost estimate for the project.
The shelter will serve as a safe haven for up to two weeks for residents who are unable to evacuate in an emergency, as well as for officials assisting with evacuations. It will be equipped with toilets, showers and a kitchen and may also be used during natural disasters, according to a facility plan released in May on the town’s website.
The shelter will be the first of five planned across the Sakishima island chain in Okinawa prefecture, according to documents from a June 18 meeting posted on the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat’s website.
The government plans to fund 90% of the construction costs for shelters in Yonaguni, Ishigaki and Miyakojima, according to the document. While plans are also in place for Taketomi town and Tarama village, the timelines for those projects remain unclear.
Though the documents do not reference a specific threat, the shelter effort comes amid growing concerns over a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait. U.S. and Japanese military planners consider the Sakishima islands at risk of becoming a flashpoint if China moves to take control of Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.
China is expected to “apply stronger coercive pressure against Taiwan” this year in pursuit of its political unification goals, according to a March report from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.
In March, Japan also updated an emergency evacuation plan for the Sakishima islands, which are home to 110,000 people and may host up to 10,000 tourists. The plan calls for relocating up to 120,000 people to 32 municipalities in southern Japan in the event of a military attack.
Japan plans to “study the wide-area evacuation and acceptance of residents, including those in the southwestern region” and will compile guidelines by March 2027, the Cabinet Secretariat document states.
